


Over The Threshold

by vachtar



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Desk Sex, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control, Mutual Pining, Sexy Use of Eldritch Powers, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25181599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vachtar/pseuds/vachtar
Summary: Martin stands up, and then does not know why.(For a prompt on rusty_kink: "Elias knows Jon and Martin are pining for each other, but they're so *slow*. They need a helping hand, something to kickstart them getting together. What better way to resolve the tension than by making them have steamy, semi-public office sex? And sticking around to watch, of course.")
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 15
Kudos: 243
Collections: Rusty Kink





	Over The Threshold

**Author's Note:**

> [Written for a prompt on rusty_kink here.](https://rusty-kink.dreamwidth.org/1380.html?thread=465508#cmt465508)
> 
> Title is from Oblivions by The National.

Martin stands up, and then does not know why.

He pauses, bracing his hand on his desk and pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses, and notes distantly that his legs are - trembling, a little. Strange. He’d only been doing paperwork, of the boring, non-Dread-Power relevant variety. Peter is uniquely terrible at budgeting, but he’s also uniquely stupidly fucking wealthy and cheerfully willing to dump thousands of pounds wherever Martin tells him to, so.

Right. Legs. Trembling. He shakes his head a little to clear it and only finds himself fuzzier than before. It’s not like Peter’s fuzziness, the creeping fog of the Lonely. This is like the old telly at his mum’s flat, which buzzed all night when she fell asleep in her chair. Like static, almost.

Hell.

His legs are at least stable enough to walk him out of his office and down the winding angles of the Archives. The movement helps as well and by the time he’s standing outside the closed door to Jon’s office he feels almost clear again. That’s good - maybe Jon’s realized that Martin meant it when he told Jon he needed him to leave it alone. It’s a piercing ache in his gut that the only way to help Jon is to shove him away - a year ago, less, he’d have been overjoyed at Jon’s tentative overtures of friendship. Now he’s the one holding himself aloof.

And also the one stalling, thinking about all this on the coward’s side of the door. He blows out a forceful breath and raps on the wood. He can hear a voice droning faintly through it, Jon reading a statement probably, and he raps again a second later. “Jon? You in there?”

There’s no response, but the voice stops. He tries the door handle and finds it unlocked. He steps in, trying to scrape up his agitated thoughts into something coherent as he goes. Probably should’ve thought about this before coming down here, but his impulse control’s always been shoddy around Jon. He’d thought he’d been getting better.

Jon is sat at his desk behind crooked stacks of papers in bulging manila folders and a humming tape recorder, staring up at Martin, absolutely stricken. He looks worse, somehow, than the last time they’d talked. Had that been only a week ago? Somehow he’s sure Jon’s lost weight and the hollows under his eyes are more like bruises at this point.

“Martin - ?” Martin scoffs and jerks his head at the surprised note in his voice. Like he doesn’t know why Martin’s down here. 

“Jon, I told you, you need to stop. You have to let me do - what I’m doing. This can’t keep happening.”

“Martin, I don’t - ” Martin cuts him off, building up steam.

“I’m serious! If you get involved, you’re going to jeopardize everything I’m doing. I know you don’t like it, but I make my own decisions, alright? And you, you need to accept that - ” 

“Martin!” His voice crackles and Martin feels his words die in his throat. “Whatever you think is happening, I - that’s not what’s happening.” It’s a lame excuse, and from the look on Jon’s face, he knows it but his eyes flicker to Martin’s right, and he finally notices the figure half-hidden in the shadow of the door.

The last time he saw Elias was in a prison cell, looking smug and putrid in a grey tracksuit. Now he’s back in a suit, hair gelled into place and looking every bit the mild-mannered bureaucrat. The slight smile on his face is obscenely smug. “Hello, Martin. Thank you for joining us.”

Martin staggers away from him, glancing automatically back at Jon. He hasn’t moved from his chair, but his expression has shifted into something more resigned, painfully tired. “I didn’t call you down here,” he offers, voice dull. Jon presses the heels of his hands into his eyes for a moment like he’s got a headache - when did he stop wearing his glasses? They’re not on his desk. “And I don’t know how he’s back, or what he wants.” He looks up through his fingers at Martin, pleading to be believed. Martin can feel his defenses crumbling one by one.

“I don’t understand. He should be locked up, I made sure he was locked up - ”

“Gentlemen,” Elias cuts in. He steps forward until he’s the third point in a triangle between the three of them. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Martin’s mouth opens - was he going to say something? What was he going to say? He turns to look at Jon and it’s like battling through a dense nest of spider silk to get his head to move even that far. Jon’s eyes are huge, looming, his mouth a thin line. 

“Elias,” Jon snaps. There’s a terrified tremble in his voice, underlaid with static. He stands up with a clatter of his chair and takes a step closer to Elias, thinks better of it and moves closer to Martin. “Leave him out of this, whatever it is.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Archivist.” There’s static in Elias’s voice too, smoother than Jon’s and more insidious. It crawls over Martin’s skin, kneads into his thoughts. Elias meets his eyes over Jon’s shoulder and before Martin really realizes it he’s wrapping his arms around Jon from behind and tucking him up against his chest. He needs to protect him, get Jon out of Elias’s crosshairs, he thinks, fumbling with the top button on his shirt.

“ _Martin_.” Jon twists around in his grasp, a pleasant wriggle until he’s facing Martin. He looks - stricken. What’s got him so upset? Martin traces his unshaven jaw with a thumb and Jon shudders into it without consideration. “Martin, you need to control yourself.” There’s a frisson of fear in the back of his voice, and something like anger, maybe. Martin’s other hand winds tighter in the back of Jon’s shirt.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary, Martin.” Elias is unbearably smug and Martin’s hands flex hard without him really meaning to, digging into Jon’s flesh and making him choke on a gasp. He flings his own palms up to Martin’s shoulders, steadying them both.

“Martin. Martin, you don’t need to do this, you need to - just hold out, okay?” 

“Jon, why do you always need to make things difficult for yourself?” hums Elias. “Everything you want on a silver platter and you’re still fighting it. Honestly, the self-sacrifice is getting rather dull.” The static in his voice is a low roar now, somehow not drowning out the words but every other thought in Martin’s head is smothered. There’s none of the painful clarity from the Unknowing. What he has now is _focus_ , a dowsing rod in his chest pointing directly at the man in his arms.

He leans in, brings their mouths together and it makes Jon jolt. He’s so tired these days, worn ragged, and he tries to speak Martin’s name against his mouth. Jon twists his chin away and looks up, meets Martin’s eyes. He looks heartbroken, and Martin wants nothing so much as to wrap around him and chase that all away.

“Martin, please, we can’t - can’t let him make you do this, you need to hold on,” Jon is babbling even as his hands wind into the front of Martin’s jumper, holding him close. Martin presses his mouth to Jon’s scruffy jaw, his cheekbones, the greying strands at his temples. Jon shudders in his arms.

Elias’s voice, when he speaks, is an unrelenting wave. “Jon. We all know how much you want this. Consider it...making amends.” Martin has no idea what he means by that, but Jon sags and tilts his chin up to catch Martin’s mouth, finally, and it sets off fireworks in his belly.

He pushes his luck, parting Jon’s lips with his tongue, and Jon moans into it. Martin’s hands run up Jon’s sides, tangling in his jumper - christ, he’s even thinner than he looks, and something shameful and desperate in Martin wants to stop all this and drag him out for a proper meal instead, but Jon sucks on his lip and wriggles out of his jumper and whatever vague notions of self-control Martin had left are gone. He crowds Jon back against the desk and pushes him up onto it. 

The tape recorder clatters when it hits the ground, and Elias tips it over with one wing-tip toe until it’s righted and can resume its murmuring whir.

Jon’s arse is bony under Martin’s palms and his hips squirm desperately, pressing himself up against Martin’s weight pinning him to the desk. He tilts his head to nip at Martin’s ear, breathing hot and low against his throat. “C’mon,” he gasps, “Martin, please, come on,” he’s not even asking for anything coherent but Martin wants to give him everything anyways. He fumbles the buttons on his shirt open and strips it off his shoulders, and Jon’s hands shove his undershirt up so he can get his mouth on Martin’s nipple and make him gasp.

“Do you see, Jon? There’s no point in denying yourself. We all know what you want. So just _take_ it,” says Elias. Jon’s teeth latch on to Martin’s nipple and he whines, scrabbling at his belt until he can shove Martin’s trousers down enough to get a hand in his boxers. His fingers are cold - Martin’s found him shivering at his desk in the basement archives enough times to know Jon’s got shit circulation - and the contrast of them on his hot skin makes Martin shudder and lean into him further, intoxicated.

He feels like he’s drugged, like someone’s slipped him something and his mind is floating an inch behind his body. Jon pulls back so Martin can see his slack, desperate face, and he can’t resist leaning in to kiss him again as Jon’s hand on his cock gives him a reverent stroke.

“ _Please_ ,” Jon begs against his mouth.

Martin yanks Jon’s shirt open so hard one of the buttons flies off, and Jon cries out and clenches his hand around Martin’s cock. He pulls the hand out of Martin’s trousers, wringing a pitiful groan out of Martin as he goes, and shoulders off his shirt, slipping out of his undershirt for good measure.

The marks from Jane Prentiss’s attack are stark against his flushed dark skin, little circles of keloid scar trailing down his bare shoulder. Martin presses his hands up Jon’s sides and whimpers when his fingers find the divot in his ribcage on the left, right over his heart. He knows intellectually what Jon had done to get Daisy back, but here under his hands it’s terrifyingly vulnerable, the rapid thump of his heartbeat under nothing but soft human flesh.

Martin looks up and Jon - Jon looks like he might cry, brows knitting together, a terrible desperate sadness written all over his face. “Martin,” he breathes.

He leans in, and Jon does too, and this kiss feels different from the last, less panicked and frantic. Their mouths slide together, slow and wet, and Martin sucks on Jon’s tongue and relishes the way Jon’s moan reverberates through them both.

“Gentleman,” says Elias from the corner of the room, “while this is all, I’m sure, very overdue, I _do_ have other appointments later today. If you wouldn’t mind hurrying things along...?”

The words sink into Martin’s brain like a film, wrapping themselves around his thoughts until he can think of nothing but bending Jon over this desk and taking him, marking him. Jon apparently has much the same idea - his hands shove between them and he’s yanking his trousers open until he can slide them and his pants under his arse. Martin looks down and Jon’s cock is everything he dreamed and more, hard and dark and angled just slightly to the left. 

Jon nips at Martin’s lip and grinds up against him. He pushes just enough room between them to shimmy off the desk and turn around, leaning against it and turning his chin to look over his shoulder at Martin. “Please,” he says, and Martin’s cock throbs, half-in and half-out of his boxers.

His hand jerks out without thinking and he snatches something off the corner of the desk - a bottle of lube, and he’s pretty sure that wasn’t there a minute ago. The cap pops open under his thumb and he smears some over his fingers, brushing his knuckles fondly over one of Jon’s arsecheeks before he gets two fingers in his hole, sinking them in to the first knuckle. Jon moans against the wood of the desk and shoves his hips back eagerly.

“Excellent,” Elias murmurs, and Martin glances his way for a moment. His eyes are fixed on Jon, splayed over the desk, and Martin has enough clarity to want to shove himself between them and block his view. As soon as he has the thought, Elias’s gaze flickers up and he smirks, unruffled. “Continue.”

Jon’s rocking against Martin’s fingers, fucking himself on them deeper and deeper until the web of Martin’s hand is pressed against him. Martin traces his thumb over the rim of Jon’s hole a couple times, just to hear the strangled whimper he makes, and then pulls back and away. 

He takes a moment to just look as he gets his trousers the rest of the way open and shove his boxers low enough to free his cock. Jon’s shoulders are tensed, forearms braced on the desk and his head hanging low between them. Glossy lube is dribbling over the inside of his thighs and staining his underpants. He’s altogether debauched already, and Martin hasn’t even gotten in him yet.

Speaking of - he gropes for the lube bottle again and slicks himself up, before moving in again to crowd up against Jon’s back. Jon relaxes as soon as they’re touching and Martin presses gentle bites and kisses over the arch of his shoulder blade. He grinds his cock against Jon’s arse - he could just come like his, he thinks, rutting together like animals, but Jon shifts his weight onto one arm and flails back at Martin’s side with the other and his meaning is clear, even if the only sound he makes is a hazy moan. 

“Alright, alright.” Martin shifts back and presses in.

Jon opens underneath him like a blooming flower, a hundred other lovely things. He melts against the desk and clutches for Martin’s hand over his hip to lace their fingers together. “ _Yes,_ ” he gasps, and Martin’s whole body aches for him.

“He wants you to fuck him properly,” says Elias from the corner. Martin doesn’t bother looking over at the smug look on his face, too focused on the warm, eager body before him.

“Yes,” Jon begs, again, and Martin’s helpless but to move.

He rolls his hips in and watches, transfixed, as Jon’s free hand claws at the desk. He’s arching under Martin, trying to squirm closer even though they’re already flush against each other, and his fingers squeeze Martin’s, a gesture so hopelessly fond it makes Martin want to break down right here. 

Instead he rocks into Jon again, focuses himself more on the gasping noises he’s forcing out of Jon than the hot clutch of his arse around Martin’s cock.

Their bodies find a rhythm, crashing into each other over the desk. The air between them is hazy and delirious, the drugged feeling threading its way through Martin’s veins, urging him onward harder and faster. Jon’s words are slurred against the wood surface, but Martin can make out fragmentary pleas amid the hoarse moans. _Martin, please, yes._

He knows Jon is coming when he feels it, a desperate clenching around his cock and a rough cry dragged out of his scarred throat. His hand spasms, still clinging to Martin’s over his hip. Jon’s back arches up and Martin leans into him until he can feel the curve of Jon’s spine against his chest for a fleeting moment.

He eases his pace up, and Jon sinks back down against the desk, rocking slowly with the movements of Martin’s hips. He’s got to be oversensitive at this point, but he lies there anyways, easy and relaxed and like he wants nothing more than for Martin to keep fucking into him as he steadily chases his own orgasm.

“Come inside him, Martin, if you please,” says Elias, and Martin is hauled bodily out of his own thoughts. Elias is standing right beside them, watching the place where their bodies connect with an almost impassive hunger. His eyes are bright, and wildly focused, and his words are a needle to Martin’s brain, impossible to ignore. “He needs you to mark him.”

At the last second, Martin shoves himself forward, wrapping around Jon and hiding him from Elias’s view as he spills inside him.

Martin comes down from it slowly, blinking stars from the backs of his eyelids. His glasses are fogged up and crooked on his face where he’d shoved it against the join of Jon’s shoulder. Jon is panting softly and trembling underneath him.

“I think that will be all. If you’ll excuse me, I believe I need to go collect on a bet. As you were,” hums Elias, and the door closes behind him with a soft click.

Pulling out of Jon’s body is like casting off a veil; suddenly everything is clear, and sharp, and Martin is painfully aware of what they just did. His back aches from hunching over, and he numbly stuffs his limp cock back into his boxers. He takes his glasses off to clean them on his rumpled undershirt for lack of anything better to do. 

When he slips them back up his nose, Jon is pushing himself up from the desk, and Martin has to swallow hard to keep himself from choking at the view. Fingerprint bruises are starting to sink into the skin over Jon’s hips, and the sweaty expanse of skin between his shoulder blades nearly gleams in the low lighting.

“I’m so sorry,” he blurts out.

Jon rolls over to face him, still half leaned on the desk, and blinks like he, too, is just coming back to himself. “Suppose now I know how that feels to other people,” he says, face twisting into a slight grimace. “I don’t think I like it very much.”

“Are you okay?” asks Martin. His eyes are drawn down to the purpling skin over Jon’s hip bones, the disheveled state of his hair. 

Jon fumbles his boxers and trousers back up, covering the bruises, and steps forward until he can grab Martin’s hand - the one he’d been holding while Martin had fucked him. Even now that they’re clear-headed, they slot together comfortably.

“I’m fine, Martin. Are you - ?” Martin nods, not trusting himself to speak, and Jon leans in to press their foreheads together. His breath ghosts against Martin’s lips when he exhales and Martin wants desperately to kiss him again.

“I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to see me right now, I know you’ve - you’ve got your reasons, and I respect that, I do. I should’ve done better to keep you out of all this, or at least away from him, after everything he’s...” Jon trails off, and Martin can’t help it, he brings his other hand up to wrap it around the angle of Jon’s jaw. Jon opens his eyes to meet Martin’s, and a slight ghost of a smile brushes over his face for a moment, even as he leans into Martin’s palm.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I think, whatever that was, he’s done now. You can go, if you want.”

Martin should take the out. He doesn’t know what this means, for his plans and Peter’s, but somehow he doubts screwing Jon over his desk counts as isolating himself. Maybe it’s not too late, though, maybe things can be salvaged.

He drags his thumb over the rise of Jon’s cheekbone. Jon looks exhausted, as always, but for once the hunger in his eyes is dull and he’s just - just tired. Almost content. So Martin inhales a shuddering breath.

“What if I don’t want to go?” he asks.

Jon tilts his head to look at him. His mouth, kiss-bitten lips and two days’ worth of grey-flecked stubble, twists into a small, tentative smile.

Forgotten on the floor, the tape recorder shuts itself off with a sated _click_.


End file.
